Another day, Another Unused Space Transformed

Today I broke ground on another farm plot. The plot is roughly 1500 square feet right off of the alley behind a friend’s house. The concrete sidewalk pretty much divides the plot in half. The soil here is in great shape and the cover crop of weeds kept the soil pretty soft on the right hand side of the plot. On that side, I didn’t have to turn the soil with my shovel. Luckily, I was able to use just the tiller to turn in all the weeds and grasses into the soil. Before I tilled, I raked up some of the weeds and grass, the rest I just tilled right in. There were no chemicals used on the plot whatsoever to kill the weeds.

After tilling the right-hand plot I switched over to the other side. This area had been used for parking and the ground was highly compacted in some areas. Around the edges, under the trees the soil was soft and the roto-tiller easily turned the soil. Where the vehicles were parked, that was another story. I had to turn all of that by shovel. The ground was so hard the tiller just bounced off of it. After turning all of the compacted ground by hand, the tiller chewed it up no problem. Just as the sun was going down, I finished up the plot.

Tomorrow I will be heading over to South 43rd Stables to get a few truckloads of manure to spread on this farm plot. I figure one pickup load per side. I am also going to pick up a bag of AZOMITE and throw some on the soil as well. AZOMITE is a rock dust used as a soil amendment. It provides the plants with every mineral and some trace elements that they can absorb from the soil. This is important, as having the soil rich with rock dust and composted manure, whatever crop is grown in that soil will be healthy and nutrient dense. When you eat that food, you will receive the fullest possible benefits from eating that food. Seeing as spinach is a very nutrient dense food, which is what I intend to grow here, the soil must be well prepared.

After amending this location, I will be heading back to the south side to the other two plots with manure and rock dust to have them ready forplanting as well. The plan is to plant spinach in all of these plots to have a massive crop in mid May. If you are a CSA member, I hope you love spinach! More updates to come after another day of farming tomorrow.